[sample] A couple of weeks ago, I went with my friend Lynne to the John Bell & Croyden press day. We both picked up this particular range at the same time and fell in love with the fragrance straight off. I put something on Instagram stories with Saint Iris Adriatica Body Care lurking in the background so the brand got in touch and here we are! I’m forever moaning about the lack of variety of decent body ranges so, it’s shut me right up for now.
If you believe the power of a magnesium bath (which I do), then that’s the nearest I can get to as a comparison, except Saint Iris Adriatica is the absolute luxury version that smells so lovely, you might think you are sitting on rock in the sun at the ocean’s edge. All of the products contain Flower of Salt harvested from the Dalmation sea salt basins and contains over 75 essential minerals. Think iodine, copper, zinc, iron and magnesium.
I’m about the last person to get involved with painting myself with mud, but the Purity Paste is now the exception. I used the brush (you can use any old brush to be honest, or your hands) to paint the tops of my legs where my skin is a bit bumpy – definitely a worthwhile exercise as it heated up briefly before I rinsed away after 3 minutes to find my skin petal soft. Still bumpy but I can see with perseverance that it could make positive inroads. Apart from the cedar micro-dust that gives the lotion an orange cast, it contains olive oil, willow bark, seaweed proteins and 20 wild-plant oils. Oh, and let’s not forget the cherry kernel oil. Honestly, it’s so nice!
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If I was going to treat myself to anything from this range it would be these two. The scent of the Body Cleanse and Vitality Spritz is just so lovely and refreshing with an ozonic quality that from the ingredient list shouldn’t be there but somehow is. It’s a mix of bergamot, sweet mandarin, petitgrain, palmarosa and sage and everything about it is just uplifting and joyous. Far from spritzing Vitality all over my body I’ve been spritzing it on my chest and letting the fragrance rise so I can enjoy it for longer. There’s an enzymatic quality to the Cleanse that should give some exfoliation so my advice is to just let your skin get damp, rub in the Cleanse, leave for a minute and then get properly in the shower.
So, as you might expect, it’s luxury pricing – £29 for the Cleanse, Serenity Salve Body Lotion, £48, Purity Paste, £48 and Vitality Spritz, £45. That said, they really do feel like all the treats. There are one or two anomalies – the body salve and spritz are in glass bottles, while the cleanse and paste are in plastic (I do see that they’re the most likely to be in the shower where things can get slippy) and feel less premium, and the spray on Vitality Spritz needs to be more of a mist and less of a squirt. It’s really a range for someone prepared to indulge in the ritual rather than just a quick shower on the go. John Bell & Croyden are just updating their site so I’ll direct you to the Saint Iris Adriatica site directly, HERE.
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